Study summary · research use only
Thymosin Alpha 1 Plus Routine Treatment for the Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Plain-language summary
Paraphrased from the published abstract below — not a verdict on whether anything works.
This systematic review and meta-analysis examined Thymosin alpha 1 added to routine treatment in human patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD), pooling Thirty-nine randomised controlled trials totaling 3,329 patients. Outcomes assessed included T cell subsets, pulmonary function, arterial blood gases, and length of hospital stay. Compared with control treatment, the Thymosin alpha 1 group showed statistically significant differences in forced expiratory volume in 1 second, the ratio of forced expiratory volume in the first second to forced vital capacity, arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressures, CD4+ T lymphocyte counts, CD4+/CD8+ ratio, and CD8+ T lymphocyte counts (all p ≤ 0.001 except one outcome at p = 0.0002). The authors state more high-quality randomised controlled trials are needed to confirm these findings.
Abstract
This systematic review was conducted to assess the curative effect of Thymosin alpha 1 in the acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) patients. Six electronic databases including EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Chinese Biomedical Database, and Wanfang Database were searched for eligible papers focusing on the thymosin alpha 1 treatment in AECOPD patients. The effectiveness outcomes included T cell subset, pulmonary function, arterial blood gases, and the length of hospital stay. Stata and Review Manager Software were used for data analysis. Thirty-nine randomised controlled trials with a total of 3,329 patients were included. Compared with the control treatment, Thymosin alpha 1 therapy significantly improved forced expiratory volume in 1 second [MD = 0.29, 95% (0.26, 0.32), p <0.001] and the ratio of forced expiratory volume in the first second to forced vital capacity [MD = 6.24, 95% (3.83, 8.65), p <0.001], increased the arterial partial pressure of oxygen [MD = 7.24, 95% (3.42, 11.07), p = 0.0002], lowered the arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide [MD = -5.85, 95% (-9.38, -2.33), p = 0.001], shortened the length of hospital stay [MD = -5.39, 95% (-7.82, -2.97), p <0.001], raised the level of CD4+ T lymphocytes count [MD = 7.54, 95%(6.66, 8.41), p <0.001] and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ [MD = 0.40, 95% (0.34, 0.46), p <0.001], and decreased level of CD8+ T lymphocytes count [MD = -2.74, 95% (-3.86, -1.63), p <0.001]. Thymosin alpha 1 could significantly boost the immune function, and improve pulmonary function and arterial blood gas of AECOPD patients than routine treatment only. More high-quality randomised controlled trials are needed to further confirm Thymosin alpha 1 efficacy. Key Words: Thymosin alpha 1, Efficacy, Acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Meta-analysis.
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